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Gracchus
The Gracchi brothers were two Roman brothers, sons of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus who was consul in 177 BC. Tiberius, the elder brother, was tribune of the plebs in 133 BC and Gaius, the younger brother, was tribune a decade later in 123–122 BC. They attempted to redistribute the ''ager publicus'' – the public land hitherto controlled principally by aristocrats – and military veterans, in addition to other social and constitutional reforms. After achieving some early success, both were assassinated by the Early lives Their father was the elderly Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, who had served as tribune of the plebs, praetor, consul, and censor. Their mother was Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, himself considered a hero by the Roman people for his part in the war against Carthage. Their parents had 12 children; only one daughter – who later married Scipio Aemilianus – and two sons, Tiberius and Gaius, survived to adulthood. After the bo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiberius Gracchus
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus ( 163 – 133 BC) was a Roman politician best known for his agrarian law, agrarian reform law entailing the transfer of land from the Roman state and wealthy landowners to poorer citizens. He had also served in the Roman army, fighting in the Third Punic War and in Spain. Against substantial opposition in the Roman Senate, senate, his land reform bill was carried through during his term as tribune of the plebs in 133 BC. Fears of Tiberius' popularity and willingness to break political norms, incited by his standing for a second and consecutive term as tribune, led to his being killed, along with many supporters, in a riot instigated by his enemies. A decade later, his younger brother Gaius Gracchus, Gaius proposed similar and more radical reformist legislation and suffered a similar fate. The date of his death marks the traditional start of the Roman republic's decline and eventual collapse. Background Tiberius Sempronii, Sempronius ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish colonies outside of Italy, engage in further land reform, reform the judicial system, and create a subsidised grain supply for Rome. The year after his tribunate, his political enemies used political unrest – which he and his political allies had caused – as an excuse to declare martial law and march on his supporters, leading to his death. After his death, his political allies were purged in a series of trials, but most of his legislation was undisturbed. His brother was the reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Both were the sons of the Gracchus who was consul in 177 and 163 BC. Background Gaius Gracchus was born into a very well-connected political family. His father, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, was a very successful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (consul 177 BC)
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus ( 220 BC – 154 BC) was a Roman politician and general of the 2nd century BC. He served two consulships, one in 177 and one 163 BC, and was awarded two triumphs. He was also the father of the two famous Gracchi brothers: Tiberius and Gaius. Tiberius was of plebeian status and was a member of the well-connected gens Sempronia, a family of ancient Rome. Tiberius was the son of Publius Sempronius Gracchus. He was nephew of the consul and general Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (killed 212 BC). His paternal grandfather was also a consul in 238 BC. His mother's identity is not known. His father was not the same Publius Sempronius Gracchus who served as tribune of the plebs in 189 BC. Instead his father had possibly died during the Second Punic War, since no further references exist to him. Early career Not much is known of his early life. He may have been made an augur in 204 BC in place of Marcus Pomponius M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sempronia (sister Of The Gracchi)
Sempronia (170 BC – after 101 BC), was a Roman noblewoman living in the Middle and Late Roman Republic, who was most famous as the sister of the ill-fated Tiberius Gracchus (died 133 BC) and Gaius Gracchus (died 121 BC), and the wife of a Roman general Scipio Aemilianus. Background Sempronia was the oldest surviving child and only surviving daughter of Roman consul and censor Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and his wife Cornelia. Her younger brothers were the famed Roman politicians Tiberius Gracchus and Gaius Gracchus. Her maternal grandparents were the great Roman general Scipio Africanus and his wife Aemilia Paulla; Sempronia's maternal great-uncle was another distinguished Roman general, Lucius Aemilius Paulus Macedonicus. Her father had a formidable reputation as a general (having won a triumph in Sardinia), and was known as a strict censor who was nonetheless tremendously popular. Sempronia was born in Rome around 170 BC, and was raised and educated there by her mothe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cornelia (mother Of The Gracchi)
Cornelia (c. 190s – c. 115 BC) was the second daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, a Roman general prominent in the Second Punic War, and Aemilia Paulla. Although drawing similarities to prototypical examples of virtuous Roman women, such as Lucretia, Cornelia puts herself apart from the rest because of her interest in literature, writing, and her investment in the political careers of her sons. She was the mother of the Gracchi brothers, and the mother-in-law of Scipio Aemilianus. Biography Cornelia married Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, grandson of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, when he was already in middle age. The union proved to be a happy one, and together they had 12 children, which is very unusual by Roman standards. Six of them were boys and six were girls. Only three are known to have survived childhood: Sempronia, who married her cousin Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, and the two Gracchi brothers (Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus), who would defy the po ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum (c. 206 BC – c. 141 BC) was a politician of the Roman Republic. Born into the illustrious family of the Cornelii Scipiones, he was one of the most important Roman statesmen of the second century BC, being consul two times in 162 and 155 BC, censor in 159 BC, pontifex maximus (chief priest) in 150 BC, and finally princeps senatus (leader of the Senate) in 147 BC. Corculum was a talented military commander, who played a decisive role during the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC; he later won a triumph over the Dalmatae in 155 BC. He was remembered as a staunch conservative, defender of the ancestral Roman customs against political and cultural innovations, notably Hellenism, in contradiction with the policies of his famous father-in-law Scipio Africanus and cousin Scipio Aemilianus. This conservatism led him to order the destruction of the first stone theatre in Rome in 151 BC and to oppose the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scipio Aemilianus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Aemilianus (185–129 BC), known as Scipio Aemilianus or Scipio Africanus the Younger, was a Roman general and statesman noted for his military exploits in the Third Punic War against Carthage and during the Numantine War in Spain. He oversaw the final defeat and destruction of the city of Carthage. He was a prominent patron of writers and philosophers, the most famous of whom was the Greek historian Polybius. In politics, he opposed the populist reform program of his murdered brother-in-law, Tiberius Gracchus. Family Scipio Aemilianus was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the commander of the Romans' victorious campaign in the Third Macedonian War, and his first wife, Papiria Masonis. Scipio was adopted by his first cousin, Publius Cornelius Scipio P.f. P.n. Africanus, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of his aunt Aemilia Tertia and her husband Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the acclaimed commander who won ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (, , ; 236/235–183 BC) was a Roman general and statesman, most notable as one of the main architects of Rome's victory against Carthage in the Second Punic War. Often regarded as one of the best military commanders and strategists of all time, his greatest military achievement was the defeat of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC. This victory in Africa earned him the epithet ''Africanus'', literally meaning “the African,” but meant to be understood as a conqueror of Africa. Scipio's conquest of Carthaginian Iberia culminated in the Battle of Ilipa in 206 BC against Hannibal's brother Mago Barca. Although considered a hero by the Roman people, primarily for his victories against Carthage, Scipio had many opponents, especially Cato the Elder, who hated him deeply. In 187 BC, he was tried in a show trial alongside his brother for bribes they supposedly received from the Seleucid king Antiochos III during the Roman–Seleucid War. Di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Senatus Consultum Ultimum
The ''senatus consultum ultimum'' ("final decree of the Senate", often abbreviated to SCU) is the modern term given to resolutions of the Roman Senate lending its moral support for magistrates to use the full extent of their powers and ignore the laws to safeguard the state. The decree has been interpreted to mean something akin to martial law, a suspension of the constitution, or a state of emergency. However, it is generally accepted that the senate did not have power to make or provide exceptions to laws. No laws were actually suspended; the senate merely lent its moral authority to defend a magistrate's extra-legal acts. First used against Gaius Gracchus in 121 BC to suppress a violent protest against repeal of a colonisation law and accepted thereafter, recourse to the decree accelerated over the course of the last century of the republic. Its use was politically disputed, although usually in terms of whether a decree was justified by the challenges facing the state ra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucius Opimius
Lucius Opimius was a Roman politician who held the consulship in 121 BC, in which capacity and year he ordered the execution of 3,000 supporters of popular leader Gaius Gracchus without trial, using as pretext the state of emergency declared after Gracchus's recent and turbulent death. Biography He is first mentioned for crushing the revolt of the town of Fregellae in 125 BC. He was elected consul in 121 BC with Quintus Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus, and while Fabius was campaigning in Gaul, he took part in perhaps the most decisive event of Roman history to that point. When Gaius Gracchus and M. Fulvius Flaccus were defeated for re-election by Opimius and Fabius, Gracchus organized a mass protest on the Aventine Hill. Alarmed by this action, the Senate passed the motion ''senatus consultum ultimum'', which Opimius understood as an order to suppress their activities by any means necessary—including force. He gathered an armed force of Senators and their supporters, and confron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Optimates
Optimates (; Latin for "best ones", ) and populares (; Latin for "supporters of the people", ) are labels applied to politicians, political groups, traditions, strategies, or ideologies in the late Roman Republic. There is "heated academic discussion" as to whether Romans would have recognised an ideological content or political split in the label. Among other things, ''optimates'' have been seen as supporters of the continued authority of the Roman senate, senate, politicians who operated mostly in the senate, or opponents of the ''populares''. The ''populares'' have also been seen as focusing on operating before the Constitution of the Roman Republic#Assemblies, popular assemblies, generally in opposition to the Roman senate, senate, using "the populace, rather than the senate, as a means [for advantage]". References to optimates (also called ''boni'', "good men") and ''populares'' are found among the writings of Roman authors of the 1st century BC. The distinction bet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaius Hostilius Mancinus
Gaius Hostilius Mancinus was a Roman consul in 137 BC. Due to his campaign against Numantia in northern Spain, Plutarch called him "not bad as a man, but most unfortunate of the Romans as a general." During this campaign in the Numantine War, Mancinus was defeated, showing some cowardice, allegedly putting out his fires and trying to flee by night before being surrounded and forced to make peace. According to Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus was instrumental in bringing about the peace and saving 20,000 Roman soldiers. He returned home something of a hero, but Mancinus was put on trial by the senate, which refused to accept the treaty. While Gracchus and other lieutenants were saved by Scipio Aemilianus, the senate decreed that Mancinus be handed over to the Numantines, as some 20 Roman commanders were handed over to the Samnites after the defeat at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC. Plutarch does not relate Mancinus' further fate, but Appian noted that he was taken to Spain and handed over ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
